Which I know Rose thinks is a selling point. With his good looks and slightly crooked and adorable smile, Rose’s older brother, Isaac, is the reason almost every girl we pass in the hallways would jump at the chance to hang out at Rose’s house. Maybe it’s the fact that everyone else has a crush on him that makes it hard to think of him romantically. Or maybe it’s knowing how hard it would be to keep his attention that makes me not want to bother. I’ve tried to tell Rose that I’m not interested in dating Isaac, but somehow I always pick the wrong words and make it seem as if I might be. I guess there is no good way to tell your best friend that her brother is just too obvious a choice without sounding stupid.
So, instead of that truth, I tell another. “I’m in charge of making dinner tonight.”
“Well, I can always come to your house,” she says. “It’s been forever since I’ve seen your dad.”
That’s a streak that I am determined to continue.
“I could even help,” Rose offers in an overly cheerful tone that raises warning bells in my head. It’s the one that she used after she convinced me to sneak away from our Girl Scouts campout when we were ten and she didn’t want me to realize that she’d gotten us lost in the woods. “It would be great to—”
“What’s going on?” I stop in the middle of the hallway. Someone bumps into me from behind and yells as they shove their way around me, but I don’t care.
“We’re blocking the hallway,” Rose says as a guy brushes past and flips us off.
“I’ll move if you tell me what you’re up to. Because this isn’t about studying.”
Rose blows a strand of hair off her face and sighs. “It’s nothing terrible,” she says. “There’s just something I have to talk to you about and not when there are a bunch of people around.”
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“I’m fine. Honest.” Her eyes meet mine. “It’s actually a good thing, but I really have to talk to you about it today.”
We go down another hallway, which is starting to empty out, and reach the doorway to my last class of the day. One that I am in no danger of failing—Advanced Studio Drawing.
“I’ll meet you at the picnic benches after last bell,” I agree. “We can figure out the rest then.”
“Great! See you there.” Rose bolts down the hall and I head into class wondering what plan my friend is hatching.
Mrs. Rudoren tells us that we can use the class period to work on our final project—a still life of a bowl of bananas, oranges, and apples. Really exciting stuff. I call up my work that I finished days ago so I can turn to it if Mrs. Rudoren comes by. Then I call up the file of my mother’s unfinished work, careful to tilt the screen so no one can see the abstract image. I start drawing and, again, nothing feels right. So I clear the screen and re-create my work from this morning. My mind wanders to the would-be criminal with magenta- and-black-streaked hair. Then to the man in the gray suit and buckled black boots—his hand raised, ready to strike—while lights flash atop the police car next to the deep forest-green bush.
After school, I wait for Rose sitting on the scarred, faded wooden top of the picnic table. I balance my tablet on my legs and continue the work I started in art class. Laughter and shouts ripple the air as people head to buses or down the sidewalks toward home. The public screen behind me chirps about the storms that will be coming our way. I spot Isaac with a group of friends standing under a tree. He grins in my direction and all his friends turn to look at me. I wave, then stare down at my tablet, waiting for the buses to move.
While I wait, I draw the sidewalk and the grass. I add shadows and some patches of sunlight and am starting to draw the boy I saw out the window of my math class—the one who stood in the same spot where the magenta-haired man was arrested—when I hear Rose call my name.
“Sorry, Meri. I got held up. What are you working on?” Rose leans forward and I pull the screen up against my chest.
“Nothing all that great.”
I don’t think Rose saw the arrest this morning, and for some reason I don’t want to mention it. So I change the subject to something else. “I’m starting to think there’s no point in trying to complete my mother’s painting. It’s too late. No matter how much sleep I lose or how much I try, I know that I’m never going to understand what she was trying to create.”
“Maybe you’re trying too hard to do it on your own,” Rose says, climbing up to sit next to me.
“Dad doesn’t know what she was working on, either.” He knows what I know—that in the last six months before she died, almost every night after dinner, she spent hours in her studio or taking walks alone. She told us that she had been inspired by some project she was involved in. Only none of the drawings or photographs we found on her tablet or the projects the other designers talked about her working on resembled anything like the completed abstracts or half-finished painting. “He told me there was no point in trying to figure it out.”
Better to keep your focus on what is in front of you instead of trying to see things that aren’t there, was his advice.
Rose shakes her head at her brother, who steps toward us. He makes a face at Rose before he turns away. “Sometimes,” she says, “the best way to get to know someone is to walk a mile in their shoes. If you were part of the City Art Program . . .”
“We talked about that this morning,” I say. “The deadline for portfolio submissions passed. I didn’t send anything in. It’s over. I’ve moved on.”
“I know, but I didn’t. Don’t be mad,” she says.
I blink. “I don’t understand. Why would I be mad?”
“Because I submitted something for you.”
Before I can decide if I’m mad or not, she rushes to say, “My father explained the situation to someone he knows in the City Pride Department, and they said they would take a look at your work. So my mom helped me put together a few things that you sent me when you were starting on your portfolio, and I sent them in. They haven’t made their final decision yet, and they are interested in seeing more.”
My heart jumps, then crashes back to earth. “You talked to your dad—about me?”
“Hey, I do what I have to when it’s important,” Rose says. “And this isn’t just about your mom’s painting, it’s about your entire future. That’s important, Meri.”
Even when her parents were still married Rose didn’t have to avoid talking to her father because he was rarely around. And when he was around he wanted everything to be done the right way—which meant his way. Rose says it is because he’s so used to being in charge at work. Which could be true, but that doesn’t make it any easier to deal with.
Some days, I’m convinced that Rose continues to be my friend because I am one of the few people who genuinely couldn’t care less that Mr. Webster works in the Public Awareness and Outreach Office down the hall from the mayor or that her mother is the editor in chief of the most popular fashion magazine in the country. Almost everyone in school and most of their parents subscribe for the fashion spreads, feel-good makeover stories, and lifestyle tips. Just tap any picture and acquire what you need to brighten your own world!